looong weekend at the movies, part 1

let’s we start by the last viewed: Puncture, a film about a druggie lawyer taking on a huge case against pharmaceutical giants. based on a true story and except from the addiction and much-appreciated-on-my-part tattoos this flick sure sounded a lot like a few we’ve seen before, those that have made my own personal history in the genre.

i’m talking about The Rainmaker and A Few Good Men, the struggle of the young and more adapt to settling against bands of affiliate attorney on retailer who make lots of money for the wrong reasons. the seeking of justice for the innocents after a career of living at the edge of courthouse. a young innocent dying because the system is letting her die to save money. in no specific order all these elements are the exact same that can be found in both movies i cited before, so it’s safe to say that my approach was a bit skeptic.

and with reason: puncture has the same approach as those movies for the first part of the film not including, well, the end alone.

so you sit there, once in a while admiring a few scenes, a few captain america tattooed muscles, the occasional inked hooker, lots of needles in veins and in discussions, one reference to the African situation that is not heartwarming enough. then there’s the usual: money problems, allies retrieving, friends doubting.
at one point the inventor of the needle in the question that is the propeller for the judicial plot gives a drunken speech that looks too much like the scene in The Rainmaker where the father of the dead boy shows his son’s picture to the jury.

at that point you consider: am i watching something original?
my answer to that question came at 13 minute to the end, when an odd feeling came creeping in my gut that something was gonna happen: not enough time for a class action.
and so comes a deliberate, painfully realistic punch straight in the stomach. the end makes you want to throw up like an addict in withdrawal, like you’ve seen something beautifully sad that you can’t swallow but they shove it down your mouth no matter.

as one of the few films that was willing and able to surprise me, and for the (now i know*) deliberate references to previous movies of the genre i give it my full appreciation and the highest vote possible.

[*through the whole film these refs have been open, too open for their own good, but looking deeper one can see that there are no sappy moments, no grand standings, a – once again – deliberate shying away from the momentum situation to focus of seemingly less important matters. it was all really to build up to the ending, to creating a character rather than a case]